Still Standing

A girl raped on her prom night joins the U.S. army and, with the help of her close buddies, discovers her real life.

Many women are molested and raped in America, some no doubt on their prom night, but this brilliant, compelling story stands out in a category of its own. Julia Torres joined the United States Army, bound for a war zone, in order to get killed rather than open the emotional wound she had sustained, but, in the chaos of battle and surrounded by her very close buddies, found her life instead—and truth, the greatest weapon of all, to sustain her in it. Her memoir rivets and inspires.

Raised in America by Cuban-born parents, Julia Torres' professional life has been spent in the U.S. army, in which she served during the second Iraq war, and in domestic police forces, including the FBI, in which she served an an undercover agent. She has a daughter by a previous marriage.